8. Remington

EIGHT

REMINGTON

Coming out of anesthesia is like waking up from being blackout drunk. I can recall being wheeled into the operating room, the transfers of tubes and machines, even the anesthesiologist introducing herself and explaining what she would be giving me. After that, nothing. It's a blank void in my head. I can't even recall beginning to count back as she had instructed. One second I was staring up at a mirrored ceiling and the next, I'm back in the private room where I started. My eyelids are heavy, my body aches as if I've been on an all-night bender, and my mind is warped and disoriented as I try to place where each sound and smell is coming from.

There's one small anchor holding me in place though. A hand tucked inside of mine, fingers squeezing and releasing, stroking the lines of my palm. Soft, small, delicate. Through the antiseptic and sterile smell of the hospital, roses and vanilla waft up to greet me. With a deep, throaty inhale, I suck in the smell of Scarlet's perfume, the sugary sweet scent of caffeinated strawberry a?aí standing in for her iced coffee following close behind.

A quiet gasp falls from her lips as she murmurs, "Holy hell Kessler, yes please…" before a page is rapidly turned.

Cracking an eye open, my other screwing up tight against the faint light, I croak, "Who's Kessler?"

"Jesus Christ!" she startles, springing from the chair pulled up beside my bed. "You about gave me a heart attack! How long have you been awake?"

Rubbing a hand at my dry throat, I swallow several times before answering, "Not long."

"Here," she offers, leaning over me to retrieve a cup from the table at my side. Pushing a button on the bed to raise me up more, she instructs, "Drink, slowly."

Following her firm directive, I unnecessarily grasp her wrist, my fingers wrapping around her fluttering pulse as my lips close over the straw. The moment the water touches my tongue, twelve plus hours without anything to eat or drink hits me like a freight train. On instinct I begin to guzzle the straw only for her to yank it back and raise an eyebrow at me.

"I said, slowly. You'll make yourself sick."

Deeming an appropriate amount of time has passed, she offers me the cup again only this time not trusting me to follow her rules as she takes it back just as quickly. Setting it back on the table and conveniently moving it out of my reach, she scoops her hair over her shoulder, the golden strands cascading over the ruffled strap of her dress before smoothing out the pink floral pattern behind her thighs and sitting back down.

The already short hem of her dress rises further as she adjusts herself in the chair, her tan legs elegantly draping off to the side in a long line as she crosses her ankles.

"You look beautiful, Scar."

Tucking a section of hair behind her ear and bringing her hand over her mouth to hide her smile, she whispers, "Thank you," her bashful eyes darting every which way but to my face.

"So, who's Kessler?" I ask, curling my hand back around hers.

"No one."

"That was a pretty fast answer for no one."

"Just a character in my book," she evades, giving herself away as her gaze glances to the other table where her book rests.

On the cover is a drawing of a woman and what I assume to be her son in one corner and opposite them, a catcher. Even her books are centered around baseball, the small detail of how ingrained the sport is in her life making me smile.

" Catching the Coach . First Dawson, now this. Scar, do you have a thing for catchers?" I tease, the very idea making my chest puff up with equal measures of pride and jealousy.

"What? No," she stammers, her cheeks reddening. "I mean… it's just…" Sighing, she confesses in a rush, "You have a really nice butt." Her hand slaps over mouth as her blue eyes go as wide as saucers.

I can't help but laugh, the sound deep as my head falls back. It's a Freudian slip if I've ever heard one. An unconscious loosening of her tongue that directly negates any and all comparisons she made the day before between me and Roman.

"Oh my God, I did not just say that!" she cries, covering her face. Standing up she says, "Excuse me, I have to go jump out a window."

Grabbing a hold of her arm, I yank her to the bed with all the strength my fatigued muscles can manage, which isn't much. So I know when she sits on the edge of my bed, her entire face pink and the color spreading up to her hairline, down her neck, and across her exposed chest, that she's coming to me willingly.

Snaking my arm around her hip but staying mindful to keep enough space so I'm not actually touching her, I chuckle, "Thanks to squats and Jesus, it was named one of Nashville's finest. So go ahead baby girl, admire it all you want."

"I just meant, catchers have really nice butts. And thighs for that matter. Not you specifically."

"Sure, Scar."

"Oh my God…"

Laughing, I reach to pat the lower part of her thigh just as the door to my room starts to open. Fast as a snake, she's on her feet and stepping back from the bed as first her dad and then brother come into the room, Scarlet's dog getting ushered in between them.

While Colt smiles and kisses her cheek before asking how I'm feeling, Roman remains at the door, tattooed arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed, with a pink, tiara dotted leash white knuckled in his hand. Answering Colt without breaking my sudden standoff with our pitcher, I say, "Good; starving."

I don't take Roman for a fool, and I don't think I'm slinking by unnoticed by him. That silent communication we've mastered over the season is now rearing a glaring downside. Not only can he read me from the mound, but he can do it here in this room as well.

Scarlet's sudden pacing and nonstop chatter. The rumple in the sheets to my left when the rest of the bed is nearly pristine. But most telling—the fact that the moment he looked at me, I met the unspoken challenge of his keen look instead of it going right over my head.

He knows, or at least is piecing it together, and I'm unsurprised by how little I care.

I respect Roman. Not just as a teammate but also as a man. He's gruff and short tempered with an ever present look of being haunted that he doesn't mask nearly as well as he thinks, but he's good people. Shirt off his back, last dollar in his pocket, drops everything at the first ring, good. It takes a lot to get through his armor, and I'm sure any progress I've made is getting eaten up with every passing second.

But respect for him as part of the team doesn't equate to me showing him deference where Scarlet is concerned.

Intimidating posturing and cold glares may have worked to chase off the boys following her swishing skirts in the past, but that shit won't work on me. And sooner or later, he'll realize that. It's a game of wills that even post surgery I'm prepared to play, at least until her hand touches my arm, her voice betraying concern as she asks, "Remi?"

The look on Roman's face at her nickname for me is priceless, and I savor it for a fraction of a second before giving Scarlet my attention, her presence and touch as unignorable to me as a sailor under the lure of a siren's song.

Trailing my fingers down the inside of her wrist, I acknowledge, "Yeah?" Everything in me softens under her gaze and the feel of her smooth skin along my callouses.

"We need to call the nurse in so she and the doctor can evaluate you. Then you can eat, sort of."

"Sort of?"

Patting my leg as he folds his tall frame into the seat his daughter pulled to my bedside, Jones says, "Yeah, you'll probably get chicken broth and jello or something. Easy on the stomach in case you puke."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Mine," Scarlet shrugs. "When I was sixteen I had my wisdom teeth removed, tonsils taken out, and then my appendix ruptured. After each surgery… well let's just say it wasn't pretty."

Stretching his arms out over the chair before running his hands through his dark hair, Skip says, "Yeah, I guess she figured between her and Ro if we did five surgeries I could get the sixth for free."

"How do I not remember that?"

"It was in 2019," she whispers, tapping the side of her leg to summon her dog, her fingers twisting and massaging around Winnie's ears.

That would explain it.

2019 would have been my second season with the team, which was the year my ma was diagnosed with breast cancer. I spent most of that season taking her to chemo appointments, caring for her afterward, arguing about her coming to games for fear she would catch her death, and researching every option under the sun to try and buy us more time. In the end, no amount of money or years of faithful belief in God were able to change the outcome.

She was diagnosed in February. By September, she decided to stop treatment, and I knew I would regret my stubbornness over keeping her safely at home away from germs and had relented to her coming to games again so long as she sat in a box. Then in November, three days after she saw us win the World Series, she was gone.

Clearing my throat from the clog of emotion, I nod, "Yeah, let's get this over with," suddenly no longer comfortable in the hospital.